The generation and distribution of entanglement are key resources in quantum repeater schemes. Temporally multiplexed systems offer time-bin encoding of quantum information which provides robustness against decoherence in fibers, crucial in long distance communication. Here, we demonstrate the direct generation of entanglement in time between a photon and a collective spin excitation in a rare earth ion doped ensemble. We analyze the entanglement by mapping the atomic excitation onto a photonic qubit and by using time-bin qubit analyzers implemented with another doped crystal using the atomic frequency comb technique. Our results provide a solid-state source of entangled photons with embedded quantum memory. Moreover, the quality of the entanglement is high enough to enable a violation of a Bell inequality by more than two standard deviations.
The generation and distribution of entanglement are key resources in quantum repeater schemes. Temporally multiplexed systems offer time-bin encoding of quantum information which provides robustness against decoherence in fibers, crucial in long distance communication. Here, we demonstrate the direct generation of entanglement in time between a photon and a collective spin excitation in a rare earth ion doped ensemble. We analyze the entanglement by mapping the atomic excitation onto a photonic qubit and by using time-bin qubit analyzers implemented with another doped crystal using the atomic frequency comb technique. Our results provide a solid-state source of entangled photons with embedded quantum memory. Moreover, the quality of the entanglement is high enough to enable a violation of a Bell inequality by more than two standard deviations.
Entanglement between light and matter combines the advantage of long distance transmission of photonic qubits with the storage and processing capabilities of atomic qubits. To distribute photonic states efficiently over long distances several schemes to encode qubits have been investigated-time-bin encoding being particularly promising due to its robustness against decoherence in optical fibers. Here, we demonstrate the generation of entanglement between a photonic time-bin qubit and a single collective atomic spin excitation (spin wave) in a cold atomic ensemble, followed by the mapping of the atomic qubit onto another photonic qubit. A magnetic field that induces a periodic dephasing and rephasing of the atomic excitation ensures the temporal distinguishability of the two time bins and plays a central role in the entanglement generation. To analyze the generated quantum state, we use largely imbalanced Mach-Zehnder interferometers to perform projective measurements in different qubit bases and verify the entanglement by violating a Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt Bell inequality.
As the reach of quantum technologies extends ever further in communication and information science, a reliable way of transferring quantum information between distant locations becomes ever more crucial. While photons are widely accepted as excellent carriers due to their speed and low decoherence, losses of transmission (in free space or fibre) and the impossibility of cloning quantum information still pose a great challenge. The quantum repeater architecture was suggested as a solution to both problems [1]. In a quantum repeater the information encoded in an input state is transferred to a new one through entanglement swapping, that is then sent on along the channel. In this work we present our advances towards the realisation of a quantum repeater. Our system of choice combines a solid-state quantum memory with a source of photon pairs. The memory is based on a Rare-Earth Doped crystal, where quantum information can be stored in Pr3+ ions as a collective excitation using the Atomic Frequency Comb technique. On demand retrieval of the information is realised by transferring the excitation to a long-lived spin state. Record values of storage times and retrieval efficiencies have been demonstrated in this system [2]. Entangled pairs of single photons are generated by parametric down conversion in a periodically poled crystal placed inside a bow-tie cavity. This allows us to generate narrow band photons pairs, where the signal is spectrally matched to the memory (606nm), while the idler is in the telecom band [3]. Such a configuration allows us to benefit from the high performance of the memory, that also allows for temporal [2] and frequency [4] multimodality, while at the same time overcoming the high optical losses of 606nm photons by pair generation of a telecom photon. The first stepping stone, progress towards which is presented in this work, is the successful demonstration of energy-time entanglement between the telecom idler photon and the signal photon, stored as spin-wave excitation. The entanglement of the original pair is maintained by the memory temporal multimodality. The entanglement analysis will be made through time-bin qubit analysers made of a fibre-based Mach-Zehnder interferometer, for the former, and a solid-state equivalent based on two AFC with different storage times, for the latter [5]. In this direction we have already doubled the efficiency of the AFC storage protocols, that will be beneficial to count rates and signal-to-noise ratio. With respect to [2], we also increased the spectral-matching between the source and the memory [4]. Our experiment will provide an increase in storage time of 3 orders of magnitude with respect to previous demonstrations, as well as introducing for the first time on-demand read-out in a highly multi-mode memory. Demonstration of the successful transfer of quantum information between the signal photon and the long-lived solid-state excitation will open the way to the demonstration of long-distance entanglement between individual nodes in a quantum network.
The generation and distribution of quantum correlations between photonic qubits is a key resource in quantum information science. For applications in quantum networks and quantum repeaters, it is required that these quantum correlations be stored in a quantum memory. In 2001, Duan, Lukin, Cirac, and Zoller (DLCZ) proposed a scheme combining a correlated photon-pair source and a quantum memory in atomic gases, which has enabled fast progress towards elementary quantum networks. In this Letter, we demonstrate a solid-state source of correlated photon pairs with embedded spin-wave quantum memory, using a rare-earth-ion-doped crystal. We show strong quantum correlations between the photons, high enough for performing quantum communication. Unlike the original DLCZ proposal, our scheme is inherently multimode thanks to a built-in rephasing mechanism, allowing us to demonstrate storage of 11 temporal modes. These results represent an important step towards the realization of complex quantum networks architectures using solid-state resources.
Entanglement between photons at telecommunication wavelengths and long-lived quantum memories is one of the fundamental requirements of long-distance quantum communication. Quantum memories featuring on-demand readout and multimode operation are additional precious assets that will benefit the communication rate. In this Letter, we report the first demonstration of entanglement between a telecom photon and a collective spin excitation in a multimode solid-state quantum memory. Photon pairs are generated through widely nondegenerate parametric down-conversion, featuring energy-time entanglement between the telecom-wavelength idler and a visible signal photon. The latter is stored in a Pr^{3+}:Y_{2}SiO_{5} crystal as a spin wave using the full atomic frequency comb scheme. We then recall the stored signal photon and analyze the entanglement using the Franson scheme. We measure conditional fidelities of 92(2)% for excited-state storage, enough to violate a Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality, and 77(2)% for spin-wave storage. Taking advantage of the on-demand readout from the spin state, we extend the entanglement storage in the quantum memory for up to 47.7 μs, which could allow for the distribution of entanglement between quantum nodes separated by distances of up to 10 km.
The realization of quantum networks and quantum repeaters remains an outstanding challenge in quantum communication. These rely on the entanglement of remote matter systems, which in turn requires the creation of quantum correlations between a single photon and a matter system. A practical way to establish such correlations is via spontaneous Raman scattering in atomic ensembles, known as the Duan-Lukin-Cirac-Zoller (DLCZ) scheme. However, time multiplexing is inherently difficult using this method, which leads to low communication rates even in theory. Moreover, it is desirable to find solid-state ensembles where such matter-photon correlations could be generated. Here we demonstrate quantum correlations between a single photon and a spin excitation in up to 12 temporal modes, in a ^{151}Eu^{3+}-doped Y_{2}SiO_{5} crystal, using a novel DLCZ approach that is inherently multimode. After a storage time of 1 ms, the spin excitation is converted into a second photon. The quantum correlation of the generated photon pair is verified by violating a Cauchy-Schwarz inequality. Our results show that solid-state rare-earth-ion-doped crystals could be used to generate remote multimode entanglement, an important resource for future quantum networks.
The present thesis includes a series of experiments exploring the potential of using rare-earth ion-doped crystals as a light-matter quantum interface using different quantum states of light as a probe resource. We start with the realization of an elementary quantum repeater block, implementing quantum teleportation of a polarization qubit into a solid-state quantum memory based on a yttrium-orthosilicate crystal doped with neodymium ions. The storage of an hyperentangled state of light compatible with long-distance quantum communication was demonstrated to show the potential of using this quantum memory for quantum purification techniques. To explore the temporal multiplexing capability of atomic frequency combs in atomic ensembles we performed temporal multimode storage of multi-photon entangled state of light. Such a temporal multimode capacity together with the developed novel theoretical techniques allowed us to show the storage of more than one bit of entanglement (ebit) using multi-photon and multi-dimensional entangled photon states.